Villa Goldstein

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The Villa Goldstein was an upper -class villa in Berlin-Westend , Arysallee 2 / Sensburger Allee 17. It was built in 1922–1924 for the lawyer Ismar Goldstein and his wife Jeanette based on a joint design by the architect Arthur Korn and the civil engineer Siegfried Weitzmann .

This building is a very early and important, if generally unknown, design of the New Building in Germany, which was damaged in World War II and demolished in 1957. The design of the building and the property gained further importance through the collaboration of Richard Neutra and Rudolf Belling . The consistency and aesthetic congruence with which European architecture was brought into modernity here can certainly be compared with highly significant, better-known and better-documented buildings such as the southern French E.1027 by Eileen Gray , the Parisian Maison de verre by Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet or Walter Gropius' Bauhaus building in Dessau can also be compared.

Several photographs of this building are placed online in the Image Index of Art and Architecture - German Documentation Center for Art History - Photo Archive Photo Marburg .

Building history

In 1922, Ismar Goldstein sought out the architect Arthur Korn to commission him with an order for a representative residential building. Shortly before, Korn had started his own business with Siegfried Weitzmann. This collaboration between architect and civil engineer also shaped the planning and construction of the villa.

An area of ​​around 10,000 m² in Berlin-Westend near Heerstraße was selected as the building site, and the building file lists Ms. Jeanette Goldstein as the buyer of the property. The site was released for development a decade earlier and gradually built on in upper-class dimensions. Construction began as early as autumn 1922, and the house was occupied in 1924. While the building was still on a numbered access road, the property was soon given the address Arysallee 2.

Client

Ismar Goldstein (1880-1942) was a son of Heimann and Feige Fanny Goldstein from Lipine (today Lipiny ), a district of Świętochłowice , in Silesia and brother of Arthur Goldstein (1887-1943), social democratic and communist politician and journalist, also Berlin , and Jacob Goldstein (1873–1943), city senior veterinarian in Berlin. After graduating from high school in Königshütte (today Krolewska Huta), he completed a legal clerkship at the district court in Peiskretscham (today Pyskowice ).

From 1923 he was registered as a lawyer at the Higher Regional Court in Berlin and in 1923/1924 he was also director of Deutsche Länderbank AG on Pariser Platz . At that time he was also chairman of the board of the Austro-Grade automobile factory in Bork . Founded in 1923, it was placed under business supervision a year later and went into liquidation in August 1926.

As a persecuted Jewish citizen, who from 1933 had to fear for his professional existence as a lawyer, he could still work as a lawyer until 1937, but with the amendment of the Reich Citizenship Act of September 27, 1938 at the latest , this professional activity became impossible for him made. In 1942 he died as a Jew persecuted in the Third Reich in the Riga ghetto ; It was there on October 19, 1942, from the Moabit freight yard on Transport 21. No reliable information can be found about the whereabouts and fate of Jeanette Goldstein: Ismar Goldstein's marital status is listed as "single" on the list of deportees.

architecture

Arthur Korn's architecture, which was novel and modern at the time, divides the building into exciting, contrasting, clearly defined and decor-free volumes, is still impressive today. He planned the gardens of this property, which connects the architectural elements, together with Richard Neutra, later one of the most important architects of the modern era, and the important sculptor Rudolf Belling created fountain objects for the area.

The plans included the large residential building with a side wing for the utility and staff rooms, a bathhouse with swimming pool and the garden. The architecture of the main house was exceptionally modern in its functional detail design and the exciting arrangement of the building volumes. The main building, asymmetrically laid out in the overall complex with the utility wing and other architectural elements, plays with the architectural topos of the cour d'honneur , the courtyard of honor. His plan moves the large architectural gesture that actually receives the guests on the access side to the rear, facing the main garden with the pool and the bathhouse. Together with the conception, which is definitely aimed at a representative effect of the details and the overall appearance, it becomes clear that Korn and Weitzmann deal innovatively with traditional architectural repertoire and have found a valid formulation for a modern representative residence.

The details of the bath house, which were not fixed until the beginning of 1923, differs from the main building, which is designed in cubic blocks, in its accentuated, open, light and transparent design. The design language of this building, which goes beyond the mere development of a straightforward and functional and functional building design, is decidedly constructivist, not just constructive. The symmetry in harmony with the clearly stylized formal language is vaguely reminiscent of archaic temples such as those of the Indians, whose transformation can also be found at the same time in Frank Lloyd Wright's Storer House . The emphatically artistic and non-conformist form-finding points to Richard Neutra's or Louis I. Kahn's projects, and the utopian constructivism of Russian avant-garde architecture ( El Lissitzky ) echoes in this adjoining building, as does the constructivist thinking of the De Stijl School. Open and transparent extensions to the main building, perhaps interpreted as a modernist pergola , create the aesthetic connection to the bathhouse.

Korn described his architecture as follows: “Architecture, as sensible as the machine, like the subway train - the air cabin, the body. inconspicuously collective. ”Rashly interpreted, Le Corbusier's often abbreviated term" living machine "sounds here. Korn, however, gives ideal architecture an ambivalent character by explaining in the following paragraph: “But one can only live in an impersonal Sachhaus if the need is satisfied by the symbolic art form that the organism feels and asks: on which bases (... ) is the construction. How do the light surfaces sit in it (...). How does the building stand in relation to the near and far surroundings, to the air? (...) How does the whole get meaning to the smallest and how does the whole become a cell of the larger community. How does the whole thing grow into a landscape and human symbol. The faceless solution is insufficient. The American straight-line rational city is deadly. "

The artistic design

For the rear courtyard, Korn and Rudolf Belling planned a large fountain that determines the overall impression from the garden side. Constructed of iron and concrete, it contained movable components that used the kinetic power of the water to integrate a further movement besides the flow of the water into the fountain: In addition to its aesthetic dimension, the water also shows its technically effective forces. In this way, the fountain as a traditional design element and aesthetic haven of calm is transferred to the modern age and enriched by the previously often ignored technical component of water movement - an aesthetic added value is created by a modern approach to interpretation. Belling also designed other objects for Villa Goldstein, but these are hardly documented.

The construction of the main fountain in the garden encompasses the central axis of the iron and concrete fountain on all sides. Four spiral elements could be set in rotation by water pressure, whereby the direction of movement through the construction ran downwards, upwards or sideways depending on the spiral. The central immobile spiral, provided with 150 holes, was under high water pressure and produced a water veil.

The garden design

Korn was able to win Richard Neutra , whom he knew from his brief engagement in Erich Mendelsohn's architectural office , for the garden design. Keeping the vegetation natural and simple, he laid the main garden on the rear axis (central section of the main building - fountain - swimming pool - bathhouse) in a terracing with rubble stones and thus developed a contrasting rural film for the modern and urban architecture. The strikingly sweeping open staircase with the property wall and gates between Arysallee and the front of the house reflected this straight, terraced design as well as the rustic component.

The history of Villa Goldstein

Completed and occupied in 1924, the villa immediately caught the public's attention: on the weekends, passers-by interested in architecture gathered and discussed the construction. The villa was acquired by the German Gymnastics Association as early as 1926 . The modernity of the building contrasted with the mostly conservative gymnastics association. The building, now known as the House of the German Gymnastics Association , continued to be discussed intensively in the specialist press.

The villa was used by the German Gymnastics Association as an office, the fixtures were removed and the already no longer functioning fountain in the garden was also removed. In the nearby German Sports Forum on the Olympic site , the German Gymnastics Association established the German Gymnastics School , could be carried out in the training of physical education teacher training. A planned relocation of the office to the sports forum area was never implemented.

The realization of the much discussed buildings of the New Building in the style of Arthur Korn, the Bauhaus School and the architectural avant-garde as a whole, as this process shows by way of example, was not desired until the end of the Second World War - instead, alternative designs were built. The style, which followed the rational demands and possibilities of modernity, was opposed to a retrospective, classicist primed and imperial gesture.

It was only in the post-war years that Berlin and Germany were able to reconnect with modern architecture. The history of Villa Goldstein also exemplifies this, including important buildings that had survived the Third Reich and the chaos of war, had to give way to a changing zeitgeist: Damaged in the Second World War, the property could be inhabited until 1957. At this point, however, it was decided to demolish Villa Goldstein. This was then removed in order to create new living space on the large property.

literature

  • H. de Fries (ed.): Modern villas and country houses , 3rd edition, Berlin: Wasmuth 1925, pp. 202–207.
  • Paul Westheim: Reference to Arthur Korn. In: The art paper. Year 1923, issue 11/12, pp. 334–335.
  • Arthur Korn: Analytical and Utopian Architecture. In: The art paper. Year 1923, issue 11/12.
  • The construction world . Year 1926, issue 36
  • Winfried Nerdinger : The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling and the art movements in Berlin 1918–1925 with a catalog of plastic works. Dissertation. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  • Andreas Zeese: The forgotten modern age. Arthur Korn, architect, urbanist, teacher (1891–1978). Life and work of a Jewish avant-garde in Berlin and London. Dissertation. University of Vienna, 2010.
  • Markus Jäger: The Warnholtz House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1914/15. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 65th year 2002, p. 123 ff.
  • On the history of the Royal High School in Königshütte O.-S. , 26th annual report. Koenigshütte 1903
  • Handbook of German Stock Companies 1923/24 , Volume 1A. Hoppenstedt-Verlag, Darmstadt 1924
  • Handbook of German stock corporations 1925 , volume 2. Hoppenstedt-Verlag, Darmstadt 1925, p. 2928
  • Rudolf Steiger: My recollections of Arthur Korn, Berlin 1923–1924 . In: Dennis Sharp (Ed.): Planning and architecture: Essays presented to Arthur Korn . London 1967, pp. 143-145

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  2. ^ A b Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, p. 156 f.
  3. ↑ bildindex.de
  4. ↑ Files: District Office Charlottenburg in Berlin, Building and Housing Department, Building Supervision Office, Arysallee 2
  5. ↑ Markus Jäger: The Warnholtz House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1914/15. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 65th year 2002, p. 123 ff.
  6. ↑ Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981
  7. ^ Ismar Goldstein in the memorial book
  8. ↑ Arthur Goldstein in the memorial book
  9. ↑ Georg Möllers: Jewish veterinarians in the German Reich in the period from 1918 to 1945 , Diss. Hannover 2002, p. 151
  10. ↑ On the history of the Royal High School in Königshütte O.-S., 26th annual report, Königshütte 1903
  11. ↑ Goldstein, Ismar, lawyer at the Supreme Court . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1923, Part I, p. 896.
  12. ^ Handbook of German stock corporations 1923/24, Volume 1A, Hoppenstedt-Verlag, Darmstadt 1924
  13. ↑ tschoepe.de (PDF)
  14. ↑ a b Handbook of German stock corporations 1925, Volume 2, Hoppenstedt-Verlag, Darmstadt 1925, p. 2928
  15. ^ Hanseatisches Sammlerkontor - historical securities
  16. ^ Goldstein, Ismar, lawyer . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1937, part, p. 773.
  17. ↑ Lawyers' Association (PDF; 175 kB)
  18. ↑ Written information from the Berlin State Archives of March 16, 2015: The historical residents' registration file in the Berlin State Archives records him as "transferred to the East on October 19, 1942" and "died in Riga at the end of 1942 (Berlin registry office I, No. 3147/1950)"
  19. ↑ statistik-des-holocaust.de
  20. ↑ Arthur Korn: Analytical and utopian architecture. In: The art paper. November / December 1923, pp. 336–339.
  21. ↑ Detailed description from Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  22. ↑ Goldstein, Ismar . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1925, part 1, p. 901.
  23. ↑ Rudolf Steiger, 1923/24 an employee at Korn and Weitzmann, in his memoirs: Rudolf Steiger: My recollections of Arthur Korn, Berlin 1923–1924 . In: Dennis Sharp (Ed.): Planning and architecture: Essays presented to Arthur Korn . London 1967, pp. 143-145
  24. ^ Stephan Brandt: From the Grunewald racecourse to the Olympic Stadium. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3-95400-494-2 , pp. 56–57.
  25. ↑ Die Bauwelt, year 1926, issue 36
  26. ^ Stephan Brandt: From the Grunewald racecourse to the Olympic Stadium. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3-95400-494-2 , pp. 58–60.
  27. ↑ Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, p. 190.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 37.8 ″  N , 13 ° 14 ′ 55.1 ″  E